Duty Day Record? Probably Not, Unfortunately.

[inchman]

Incident: Emirates B773 near Edmonton on Jun 1st 2014, lavatories on strike

By Simon Hradecky, created Tuesday, Jun 3rd 2014 20:20Z, last updated Tuesday, Jun 3rd 2014 20:33Z

An Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300, registration A6-EGH performing flight EK-226 from San Franciso,CA (USA) to Dubai (United Arab Emirates), was enroute at FL310 about 500nm north of Edmonton,AB (Canada) about 3.5 hours into the flight when the crew decided to divert to Edmonton after all lavatories on board ceased functioning. The aircraft landed safely in Edmonton about 90 minutes later.

Maintenance convinced the lavatory system to resume function, the aircraft was able to depart Edmonton after 3.5 hours on the ground and reached Dubai with a delay of 6 hours.

A passenger reported about 2 hours into the flight everyone on board figured out that none of the lavatories was working. Passengers were kept on board while maintenance was working on the toilets. After maintenance had fixed the toilets, a lot of passengers "tested" the toilets. After operation of the lavatories was confirmed the aircraft was refueled. By then ice had built up on the wings and the aircraft needed to be de-iced before it could depart. Instead of a planned 15.5 hours flight the aircraft reached Dubai after about 21.5 hours.

http://avherald.com/h?article=4755341e&opt=0

Flight Day: 21.5 hours. Plus wake-up, transit and flight planning for a 1700 PDT departure resulting in an "official" duty day of almost 23 hours and a true time from wake-up to arrival of over 24 hours. They woke up at about 1400 PDT... 0100 Gulf Standard Time and arrived about 0130 GST. About 5-6 hours of that would not be available rest time because of the diversion and ground time.

Is there a lot of pressure at Emirates to complete flights.... safety be damned?

Of course, the passengers would have said (and believed) that Emirates and the pilots did a great job and recovery after the problem even though they had put getting the aircraft to Dubai ahead of safety.

[Don Hudson]

inchman, I believe Emirates works their pilots 'very hard'.

However, this isn't news for airline pilots in Canada. Such a crew duty day on large transports is legal in Canada under the CARS, and with only one augment pilot as long as an SAE-certified bunk for prone rest is available. A crew member can be at the controls for a maximum of 14hrs.

The result is, airline pilots in Canada must "spend" their negotiating dollars with the employer to ensure proper crew rest facilities and appropriately-designated crew duty and off-duty periods, bearing in mind circadian time.

The duty-day law is tougher for long-haul bus drivers than it is for airline pilots in Canada. I recall a school trip on which the driver had put in something like a 10:30hr day. At our destination, we needed a ride to a local music venue, just across the highway, about 3 minutes away. The driver refused, saying if he were caught at the wheel exceeding his duty day, it was a serious infraction and would land him in a lot of trouble. We walked. Now I know very well that bus transportation and airline transportation are different and are not as easily controlled. One can sleep in a seat a bunk, (or incidentally fall asleep in the cockpit) and you can't do that on a bus without result. But other than the trivially-obvious, the argument for differences is in bad faith. If the rules didn't permit departure in the first place, (for circumstances similar faced by the Emirates' flight), and either another crew or an overnight were required, then it becomes as easy to govern duty periods in air transport as it does bus or trucking transport.

I know progress is being made on FRMS and things are trending better. But the CARS haven't changed...yet. Here's hoping.

[Trader]

Under UAE law, which follows teh European EASA, the max duty for a ULR with 4 pilots is 22 hours. This is not disecretion but simply the max duty. It can be extended as well with permission from teh authority.

[John S.]

. . . . all lavatories on board ceased functioning. . .

"Ceased functioning" probably means "the lavs auto-shutdown". On a 777 that happens when the holding tanks are full. But it is probably best for the pilots to tell the folks that it is a 'maintenance issue' rather than 'we did not get a lab service and nobody noticed that the tanks were almost full before we took off'.

Emirates isn't the first (and won't be the last) airline that has to make an unscheduled 'lav service' diversion. Heard it even happend on a London flight at Air Canada recently.

[blues deville]

Shite happens.

[deicer]

It may also mean that even if the tanks are empty, the sensors get 'covered' over time and then will give you a full indication.

Happens more often than you think.

Boeing redesigned their 767 lav tanks after a spate of such incidents in the early long haul days with the 200 series.

[boestar]

I spent more time in the 767 lav tanks than I care to remember.

[melcrothers]

The A310 were the worst I ever experienced. YVR-HNL when Royal & then TransAt operated for us at Signature, we got hundreds of complaints about lav problems every month!

[boestar]

The L-1011 were the worst. When clogged up with Paper they were a nightmare.

[blues deville]

Speaking of L1011's, isn't this touchdown a little nose high? If it wasn't for the smoking tires and all that flap hanging out I'd say it was rotating for take-off, however, it's a landing in Prestwick. I've only ever flown as a passenger on AC's a couple of times many years ago.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Canada/Lockheed-L-1011-385-1-TriStar/2451271/L/

[boestar]

Not at all for an L-1011. I have seen more than one tail skid impact in my career. They always land nose high. In Fact they fly nose high as well. Its like climbing a hill going back to your seat from the aft lav.

I still love the airplane though

[Guest]

What a gorgeous machine...

[blues deville]

Not at all for an L-1011. I have seen more than one tail skid impact in my career. They always land nose high. In Fact they fly nose high as well. Its like climbing a hill going back to your seat from the aft lav.

I still love the airplane though

Definitely an airplane ahead of its time when introduced to the airline industry. However, the nose up attitude in cruise of most modern airliners is not quite the same as the touchdown attitude in the photo. The tail skid looks to be very close to the ground.

[boestar]

Blues. As I stated I have seen more than one of the hit in my career. the aircraft was prone to touching down in a very nose high attitude.

Much of the technology used in the L-1011 was actually more accurate than that in use today. Rumour had it the autoland feature was so accurate that it could not be used at some airports until the touchdown zone was beefed up due to it ALWAYS landing in the same spot. I am not sure on that but I have heard it said.

The active flight controls on the -500 series we not seen again until the A-320 series made its debut. the LAF function on the Airbus was pioneered on the Lockheed.

the engines left a little to be desired besides spinning backwards they were prone to failure. It took years to build reliability in the RR engines.(Lots of OT though)

I miss the old Tritanic.

[blues deville]

I found this video of Delta L1011 landing at Victorville. Last flight and probably an empty airplane but the touchdown attitude seems to be what I would expect to see. (At 6:40)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fqu-YEcl0e8

[Don Hudson]

boestar - It was the best airplane I ever flew - fabulous machine, way ahead of it's time - expensive to maintain I heard.

[blues deville]

boestar - It was the best airplane I ever flew - fabulous machine, way ahead of it's time - expensive to maintain I heard.

The nickname I recall as a summer student working for Delta was "hangar queen."

[boestar]

Hangar Queen, Pigboat, Tritanic... I am sure there are more..

Don: I always loved flying on the L10 when going to YVR from YYZ. It was the nicest aircraft to fly on in the entire fleet.

I was on a test flight once many moons ago and that aircraft did things I didn't think an airliner of that size could do.

Unfortunately the economics were not good for the old bird. There were no engine options so you had the Rolls engines. The RB211-22B was a maintenance pig from the start. I am sure there are a few (maybe even reading this) that paid for their house from the overtime on engine changes. We became quite adept at changing them and even set a few records. The -524 on the -500 series was an improvement but not much, she was still a thirsty bird.

The Flight Engineer panel was the nicest layout of any aircraft in existence and easy to see what was going on with the aircraft. Even Boeing adopted some philosophies from here when the 767 came into being. Albeit on the overhead as the FE panel disappeared.

It was a sad day when we sent the last one to the desert.

[Don Hudson]

"The nickname I recall as a summer student working for Delta was 'hangar queen.' "

...by those who never flew it...

True, it was expensive to operate. But it was a pilot's airplane, as was the cockpit. I did three years of Bombay's in it - At 496,000lbs on a hot BOM night, it never hesitated on the runway at Vr. The DC8-61 out of ZRH to YYZ always made one wonder...

The avionics kit was far superior to anything going at the time, predating Airbus and certainly Boeing with its sophistication and accuracy in both NAV and PERF functions.

One did the control check very slowly as one was moving the entire horizontal stabilizer...no swift up-then-down banging of the controls on that airplane...not by those who cared for airplanes, anyway!

[boestar]

and here is LTU Landing

http://www.airliners.net/photo/LTU---Lufttransport-Unternehmen/Lockheed-L-1011-385-1-TriStar/2415474/&sid=15039ef9565849ea89373e7a3731c58f

[boestar]

It was physical proof that, given enough power, anything will fly.

It also had the most rigid wing I have ever seen. That thing never moved.

[Fido]

Fin 555 was able to convince this non-superstitious person to cross his fingers at every departure.

I was never sure that it was not coming back to the gate.

[Airband]

The nickname I recall as a summer student working for Delta was "hangar queen."

And occasionally 'Drama Queen'

(FF to approx. 53sec mark)

[blues deville]

and here is LTU Landing

http://www.airliners.net/photo/LTU---Lufttransport-Unternehmen/Lockheed-L-1011-385-1-TriStar/2415474/&sid=15039ef9565849ea89373e7a3731c58f

Wow!

[blues deville]

"The nickname I recall as a summer student working for Delta was 'hangar queen.' "

...by those who never flew it...

True, it was expensive to operate. But it was a pilot's airplane, as was the cockpit. I did three years of Bombay's in it - At 496,000lbs on a hot BOM night, it never hesitated on the runway at Vr. The DC8-61 out of ZRH to YYZ always made one wonder...y!

Unfortunately when a plane is parked in the hangar it becomes an engineer's headache. Although it was full of advanced features, the systems were complex and maintenance intensive according to those I know who worked on them. Not a big seller for Lockheed with less than 300 produced. As mentioned already, the RB211 was a major problem and didn't help it's future. RR somehow got it right for the 757 series with the -535E versions. I've flown over 10,000 hours on them and not as much as ripple.

I also flew all three. DC8-61, -62 and -63. The -61 was an experiment with not enough engine or wing. Douglas got it right with the -62 and -63 combinations.